A guide to email marketing deliverability and privacy best practices.

December 21, 2004

2005 Predictions

Though I don’t have any predictions about J-Lo, “Bennifer,” or whatever in 2005, I’ve got lots of ideas of what will happen in the email space. It turns out that 2004 was a pretty interesting (and pivotal) year for email, and next year hopes to be much the same. At least if my predictions come true…

1. Email Sender Authentication Becomes Standard2004 was the year that email sender authentication moved from just an idea to a set of proposals. Though there was mixed industry cooperation. SPF, Sender ID and Domain Keys gained followers with the help of major corporate backing from AOL, Microsoft and Yahoo, respectively.

Nearly 70% of the mail received at some ISP’s is now SPF compliant, and both Yahoo and Gmail are now signing outbound email with DomainKeys. 2005 will see not only consolidation of sender authentication standards, but also widespread adoption of them from the sending and receiving communities. By late ’05, a majority of major ISP’s will be using some form of sender authentication check on inbound email and use the results as a component of their accept/reject decision.

2. Sender Reputation Gains ProminenceLegitimate email senders will have more opportunity to prove themselves in 2005 by sending clean email. With authentication will come more responsibility on the senders and spammers will be forced into the light. Ultimately a sender’s reputation (for name opt-in name capture, consumer privacy, list hygiene, and unsubscribe practices) will drive delivery.

Hotmail already relies on Bonded Sender, a reputation program created by IronPort and TRUSTe, to help them make inbox or filter decisions on incoming mail. Other reputation providers such as CloudMark and Habeus will gain traction, as well as e-stamp pioneers GoodMail will all see further adoption of their technologies next year. If I have my wish, reputation systems will be used by all major ISP’s—though I’m not predicting they will (at least not by next year).

3. Address Book Strategy Critical to ROIWith Microsoft Outlook, AOL, Gmail, and Hotmail all using image and link suppression to reduce the impact of spam on their users, marketers will find that the presence (or lack there of) of their email “from address” in their subscribers’ address books more critical than ever to their ROI. Once in a subscriber’s address book (or safe sender list) as marketer can hope for not only improved message rendering and visible images, but reduced filtering and higher ROI.

4. Quality List Practices a Must, not an OptionIn 2005 marketers will no longer be able to live by pre-Web name capture, trade and sell methodologies. What worked in the offline/catalog world for the past 30 years doesn’t fly when it comes to email—not even close. In fact, living by old name capture and hygiene practices can result in reduced ROI, increased customer attrition, reduced deliverability, and possibly litigation.

By 2007, Jupiter expects a typical user to receive double the number of opt-in emails than they do now. The increase will become evident for most subscribers in 2005 and more of them will treat messages that are irrelevant or come too frequently as spam. In an email environment driven by reputation, end user complaints could be the death of a company’s deliverability. Also, managing removal requests across an organization will continue to be critical to CAN-SPAM compliance—requiring more diligence and technology focused on enterprise data hygiene.

5. Relevance Drives ActionWhen email ceases to be relevant it becomes spam. Or at least that is what most users will tell you. 2005 will reward only companies sending relevant, timely messages. Though this trend has existed as long as email has, unwanted messages now make up the bulk of mail we each receive. Only by speaking to your subscribers with information that they care about can you hope to continually be “invited back.” Permission marketing, after all, is about dialog. Dialog needs to be two-way, so if you’re not listening, or observing, your subscribers behavior, interests, etc.—then expect to get a pink slip from them in 2005.

Comments

Hi, I just read your 2005 Predictions.

Why process email that you can identify as 100% fraudulent? Where not all spam is sent using a fraudulent source address, all email sent with a fraudulent email source address is spam. According to the APWG 95% of all phishing attacks come from fraudulent email addresses. What are you thoughts on the following? Thank you.

Mail Authentication Protocol or MAP, is an email authentication system that executes at the mail gateway (MTA) to authenticate all inbound mail messages. MAP requires no changes in Internet protocols or any modification in the behavior of SMTP. MAP, successfully deployed for two years by ICS Network System's Mail Sentry² service. MAP continues to protect hundreds of enterprises by blocking millions of fraudulent email messages.

MAP uses a series of verification tests, operating in real time, that determine if an email is attempting to be sent, using a false, forged, or unverifiable sender address, or sent from a compromised/zombie PC. This method eliminates quarantining and disposition issues and MAP generates a detailed and complete log of all email traffic, accepted or rejected.

· MAP blocks delivery (and simultaneously alerts the sender) of all inbound messages determined to be false, forged, un-verifiable or issuing from a compromised PC (zombie).
· MAP operates in real time testing all message sent to a protected server
· MAP authenticates the original sender
· MAP authenticates the connecting host
· MAP authenticates the SPF Record, if one is published
· MAP authenticates whether sender domain has published bona-fide MX records
· MAP tests the MX host to determine if they are properly configured (real)
· MAP authenticates the fully qualified sender address to test if the fully qualified sender address is valid per the MX host
· MAP alerts the sender of any email that is being "blocked"
· MAP logs all "blocked" traffic
· MAP does not evaluate message content
· MAP delivers immediate benefits to any size organization by eliminating over 60% of all email traffic received by a network, resulting in reduced bandwidth needs, conserving server capacity and lowering overall IT costs.